La Belle Époque

In this post I feature two artworks put together earlier this year. Both pieces reflect the Golden Age of French and Western culture -  La Belle Époque - referred to as the 'good time' or the 'beautiful time' between the 1870s and the outbreak of World War 1 ...

The frames for the pieces are two old discarded wardrobe drawers I picked up at a junk yard and have had them in my studio for ages, wondering / waiting for a spark of inspiration from my muse ... 

The first piece utilizes a small artists' paint box framed in the drawer ... the faux-leather effect is simply hand-made paper glued to the surface + painted natural ochre then black and when dried, lightly sanded back to exposed the undercoat + then polished to give the leather look ...

  - Singers of Renown -

Standing upright, the door is unlatched and slowly opened by the viewer to reveal the mystical story contained within ...

Images I have used in these two pieces are from a 1970's book of photographs of famous late 19th century European opera singers and opera impresarios - by photographer Nadar - a book I have had for years that was slowly falling apart and just waiting to find a new life ...

 Nadar workshop and lyric art ...

 

Gaspard-Félix Tournachon (6 April 1820 – 20 March 1910, known by the pseudonym Nadar, was a French photographer, caricaturist, journalist, novelist, balloonist, and proponent of manned flight. In 1858 he became the first person to take aerial photographs.

Apologies to all book lovers - I have made a collage of a few of the hundreds of images out of the book - still many more left for a future project - maybe ...

Each image in the collage is framed together with two scrolls representing stories about that particular artist - and then the collage and scrolls are placed behind a clear perspex panel to protect them ...

I have used a beautiful gold-leaf-paper ( donated by a friend ) throughout this piece to highlight the Golden Age - La Belle Époque - from 1870s to before the outbreak of WW1...
 

The door panel features four images of a dramatic scene from the opera Romeo and Juliet ... the despair of Romeo when he finds his beloved Juliet has taken her own life ...

So many wonderful stories of those beautiful times ...

My second piece is also based on a dramatic opera from the Golden Age and also using two of Nadar's images from the book ...

The Parting

... another old drawer and another pencil box - pre-loved, discarded, rescued and re-worked into an assemblage art piece ... and incorporating two table legs - maybe part of the dressing table of a famed opera singer from a bi-gone golden age ...

... unlatch the door and open it slowly to reveal the mystery inside ...

So many operas tell the fanciful and dramatic story of ill-fated lovers bidding farewell to each other - these two were certainly not youths ( as in Romeo and Juliet ) - maybe he was off to fight the advancing Roman army and she left to rule the threatened Egyptian kingdom ...

... the musical bricks underlying all great drama ...

and so two more artworks completed 
with inspiration and materials rescued from the past 
- the Golden Age ...
 


 

Locked in Time

Another gorgeous pre-loved timber case found at a Collector's Market - was in pretty bad shape when it caught my eye, but with TLC and the right amount of gluing and clamping, it's almost as solid as it was way-back-when ...

 

The lid had a bad split in it - I glued it and then filled the gap in with liquid gold - giving the case extra beauty and extra value ( !!! ) ...

 

... beautiful craftsmanship from all angles ... 

what could its provenance be I wonder 

and what stories could it tell of past adventures ...

... stand it up on its side and open the clips - and the mystical story inside unfolds ...

I started work on this piece well into the Covid-19 pandemic lock-down, and it wasn't until I was almost finished working on it that the notion came to me that the work was really reflecting my own present day to day existence. 

 
Reflecting on the reality that time is golden - so precious - here I was ( am ) curtailed from an existence that I had taken so much for granted - snug in my neck of the woods but where time has now been locked down, placed behind a glass screen and suspended for who-knows-how-long ...

... all the materials I use in my assemblage works have had a previous existence or purpose - now rescued and assembled, they have a new story to tell the viewer ...

... look into my eyes ...

 

... time stood still at half-past midnight ... 

... when a deadly virus was discovered in China ...

 

... maybe you can view my artwork and see your own story ...

... case closed - to be reopened when the all-clear is declared ...


 

Leda and her Swans

Hunting around for usable material at recycling depots and collectable fairs and in friends' garages and the such, I have found several old pre-loved timber brief cases, and so a theme for my latest batch of artworks to come out of my studio could be described as "Traveling Art" ... over the next few weeks as they come off the production line, I will be showing off these themed works ...

The first travel case is all about

Leda and her Two Swans

Roughly based on the ancient Greek Mythology about Leda and the Swan - this time it's more about Leda and her Chinese lover and the two swans ...

 

Leda was a daughter of Thestios, the King of Pleuron; and when of age, Leda was married to King Tyndareus of Sparta; Tyndareus having been placed on the throne by Heracles.

Leda was a beautiful woman, and her beauty attracted the attention of Zeus ( the god of heaven and earth ), who spied her from his throne on Mount Olympus. The beauty of Leda roused Zeus to action, and the god transformed himself into a magnificent swan. Then, portraying himself as a bird escaping from a bird of prey, Zeus lay down next to Leda, and impregnated her. On the same day, Leda would also sleep with her husband.

Leda would subsequently produce two eggs, from which four offspring were born; the children being Helen, Clytemnestra, Castor and Pollux. ( this is ancient mythology … !!! ).

It was generally considered that Helen and Pollux were children of Zeus and Leda, whilst Clytemnestra and Castor, were the offspring of Tyndareus and Leda.

The fame of the four children would far outstrip that of their mother ...

Helen is arguably the most famous of the four children of Leda, and is more often referred to as "Helen of Troy". ​In adulthood, Helen was known as being the most beautiful of all mortals, a fact which would see her abducted by Paris whilst married to Menelaus. This abduction would see the Greeks and Trojans go to war.

Castor and Pollux were twins who were considered inseparable, and the pair were highly regarded heroes in Greek mythology.

When young, the twins would lead the Spartan army against Athens, to retrieve the abducted Helen ( their half-sister ). Then later in life they would be counted as members of the Argonauts ( a band of heroes in Greek mythology - of the quest for the Golden Fleece fame ).

Pollox was immortal, whilst Castor was mortal, and when Castor was killed, Pastor would give up his immortality, so they pair could be placed for eternity in the heavens, as the constellation Gemini.

Clytemnestra, whilst less well known, would also play an important role during and after the Trojan War. Clytemnestra was married to King Agamemnon of Mycenae, the most powerful king of the day; this meant she was sister-in-law to Helen as well as sister. ( ... stay with me ... )

Clytemnestra would sometimes be depicted as the wronged woman, and sometimes as the murderous wife. Before the Trojan War started Agamemnon would sacrifice their daughter, Iphigenia to the gods, to allow the fleet to sail from Aulis; and during the war, Clytemnestra would start an affair with Aegisthus. These two points would lead to Clytemnestra killing Agamemnon on his return from Troy; whilst she herself would subsequently be killed by Orestes, her son, because of the murder.

so, getting back to Leda - why did she have two swans, we shall never know ...

 

... and why Leda had a Chinese lover, and what it has to do with the story of her relationship with the god Zeus, we shall never know that either - think it's called "artistic license" ... 

 

Sadly, the importance of Leda in Greek mythology ends after she has given birth to the children of Zeus, and there is relatively little mention of the queen afterwards; although the story of her husband continues for many years afterwards ( typical ).

  
The story of Leda and Zeus is interesting though, as Leda some how managed to escape the jealous Hera's ( Zeus' main wife and nasty-hardly-done-by goddess ) wrath, and even the illegitimate children of Zeus were not punished by the goddess, unlike so many of Zeus' other lovers and children.

So perhaps it's best to leave our heroine Leda as she sadly ponders her future - and close this impossible case and move on ...

... remember, my art is about story telling - fake or real - and that story is what comes to your mind - your interpretation of what what you see - not trying to get into the artist's mind to understand what has motivated him ... !!! ... I think you can safely say that it is rubbish that motivates me ...